Afghan

Something that I thought of rather than studying for exams today...

Many of the more 'philosophical' arguments for the existence of God seem to derive more than a little from Alcuin's Ontological argument. Whilst the argument itself is now very tired a number of theist proof seem to rely on the notion of The greatest possible being.

However, it occurs to me that such a being can't be distinct. I mean, say we define our Greatest Possible Being, which, for the sake of brevity I shall call God. Then, if this being is distinct then presumably there is something else for it to be distinct from, which I shall call The Rest.

Now, surely, the union of God and The Rest is greater than God alone. Therefore, God cannot be the greatest possible being if there is anything else besides God.

In other words, God is identical with everything. Whether or not this implies pantheism or just atheism falls on other arguments. It also doesn't rule out other arguments in favour of God's existence, providing they don't depend on a Greatest Possible Being definition.

Does this make any sense?

Jobar

Beautiful! I don't think I've ever heard that one, and so concisely expressed!

diana

Hi, Afghan.

You lost me at the point where you said the Greatest Possible Being (GPB) cannot be the GPB if there's anything besides the GPB. I don't see the GPB as needing to represent the union of the GPB and The Rest.

I'm wondering what your assumptions are here.

Why would the GPB = GPB + The Rest? Isn't "being" singular? Among any group, there is likely to be one that is greater than the rest. That would be the GB.

Hm. The GPB would just be the being who has every possible power, wouldn't it? How does that necessitate the GPB being identical with everything?

d

Lobstrosity

I think through your uncertainty you illustrate quite nicely what I view as the greatest (heh) problem with the GPB argument: GPB has no practical meaning. What makes one being greater than another? What makes one being the greatest? "Greatest" as applied to a "being" is supremely undefined and incredibly subjective. Does it have to do with sphere of influence? Physical size? Sense of justice? Capacity for love? The size of its...personalities?

Afghan

Well I consider myself to be a being, but I suppose that my heart (say) is also a being. In general, I can't find any reason why one being can't be a collection of other beings.

I suppose you could refine the GPB step to a Greatest Possible Atom step but I am not convinced that such an entity provides sufficient 'hand-waviness' to do anything with.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Afghan :

This is an interesting and novel response to the ontological argument. I think the apologist would object that The Rest contains a lot of bad stuff, like sin and suffering and evil. Therefore, the being without The Rest is actually better than the being that's God conjoined with The Rest.

Volker

But either "The Rest" contains more bad things then good things, then you're thrown back into the problem of evil. Most theists will deny that the rest contains more bad things than good things.

And if "The Rest" does contain more good things than bad things, there will be a greater being ...

And if there are as many good things than bad things, well, that being plus "The Rest" will still be greater.

It is a novel argument, at least for me. I haven't heardt it before. Beautiful!

Jobar

Mmmm, likely true- but the obvious counter is that, if we require 'the rest' to be the creation of the GPB, then that being is the source of "a lot of bad stuff", no?

Afghan, my hat's off to you. I thought I had seen every possible change rung on all the arguments both for and against God, but this seems to be a new and interesting argument against monotheism. Why, it even allows pantheism as a viable option, reinforcing my own position as an atheist/pantheist!

diana

That's where you lost me. I don't consider any part of me a "being" in its own right. I consider my heart to be an "organ"--a part of the being I am.

Do you have any examples of this?

So far, it strikes me as a definition, of sorts, that you created in order to make your argument. That is, you assume a being can be a collection of other beings, so if this is possible, then it follows that the GPB would have to be a collective, and therefore...your argument follows.

Without support or explanation, I find this premise unacceptable.

Maybe I don't follow your reasoning, but an atom is an atom. Atoms are building blocks only. Once we combine them, we define each successive "entity" as something different. A collection of atoms is no longer considered "an atom" or even "the greatest possible atom." At the very least, they become atoms.

With all due respect, your argument seems to suffer from Christian math: 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.

I don't buy it.

d

Afghan

Okay, well thanks to those who thought it was good. Shucks!

To address a few of the counter-arguments...

The being posited by most theistic proofs is a Greatest Possible Being rather than a Best Possible Being. This latter would seem to be a rather subtly defined thing and attempting to use it in the same way as a GPB looks like a non-starter to me. All my argument rests on is that "the part is less than the whole".

Also, we don't require all the Rest to have a positive value (already we're starting to encroach on something like measure theory here) only some part of it. As long as we have this, the argument works. The only people I can imagine who would have aproblem with this assumption are Gnostics who believe the material world (or "the Rest") is inherently evil.

Now, by being I was assuming a fairly standard dictionary definition, "something which exists". Certainly, a collection of existing things has that property. Diana's "entity" perhaps.

By atom however, I was using a philosophical definition rather than a physical one, as in "something which is indivisible". Or in other words, a being (my definition) which could not be decomposed into lesser beings. This would be identical, I think, with the alternative definition of "being".

Even if you are working with different definitions I think the argument still stands up. A GPB argument generally requires something to possess a particular quality. Even if we can guarantee that a being (my definition again) has that quality, we are not guaranteed that this being is atomic.